The Good Writing Gods

I’ve seen countless articles and tweets on the topic of “good writing.” So and I have a question:

Who the hell gets to decide what good writing is?

Is there a writing god reviewing all the work put into the world, determining what’s good and what’s trash? If there is, I reject him. Instead, we can look to the world of comedy for answers.

I’ve heard multiple comedians discuss how they wrote a joke they thought was hilarious. However, when they got on stage to tell it, they got crickets. So what gives, why isn’t the funniest joke getting any laughs?

Well, maybe because it’s not funny. Ultimately, the comedian doesn’t get to decide if their joke is funny. Their audience does. And I’d argue that writing follows the same laws.

I think it’s important to understand that writing is an art form, and thus, on some level, good writing is in the eye of the reader. But this seems to be overlooked.

I come across so many articles and tweets proclaiming what makes “good writing,” but none of them discuss this. They narrowly focus on the idea that “good writing” must be clear and succinct. While this may be true for writing sales copy, it doesn’t apply to everything.

If it did, then why is the Harry Potter series so damn long? Why didn’t J.K. Rowling cut out all the fluff and condense it down to make her points?

Art is not a cookie-cutter activity, and so I don’t think cookie-cutter advice is sufficient; we’d create a dystopian world of cookie-cutter art. In fact, we see this to a degree already. Look at Twitter and you’ll see an endless stream of tired platitudes. People are just mimicking the same clear, concise, and “well written” things.

If all writers were concise and didn’t use any SAT words they would all sound the same. That’s ridiculous. Art is art because it’s colorful, it’s unique, it’s expressive, it’s surprising, it’s emotional.

Art is far more nuanced than prescriptionized “good writing” guides make it out to be.

Look at the physical art world. People like all kinds of abstract and unclear physical art. Someone recently bought an invisible sculpture for over $18,000. An invisible. fucking. Statue. Who’s to say it wasn’t the most beautiful statue they’ve (n)ever seen?

Ultimately, I think good writing is determined not by artificial stylistic measuring sticks, but by readers. Good writing is writing that readers like.